Gamblers, Fraudsters, Dreamers \u0026 Spies: The Outsiders Who Shaped Modern Japan by Robert Whiting

Gamblers, Fraudsters, Dreamers \u0026 Spies: The Outsiders Who Shaped Modern Japan Reviews

• 
  Patrick McCoy

  Robert Whiting will probably always be associated with his books analyzing Japanese baseball and culture in The Chrysanthemum and the Bat, You Gotta Have Wa and other titles. But he has also enjoyed success writing about the history of foreigners in Japan with Tokyo Underworld: The Fast Times and Hard Life of an American Gangster in Japan about Nick Zappetti and himself in Tokyo Junkie. The former was said to have been in film development for many years while Whiting was planning on expanding a sequel that was first published in Japanese while he added to the planned English version, which was realized in the 50,000 words and 15 chapters of the fascinating Gamblers, Fraudsters, and Spies: The Outsiders Who Shaped Modern Japan finally published in 2024.
  
  The early chapters in the book give a colorful overview of life in Japan post WWII during the Occupation, where it was something of a free for all for black marketeers. In “The Cannon Agency,” Whiting gives a history of the black-operations group that was said to have involved in kidnapping, drug smuggling, and shoot outs in the streets. And the American government was backing nationalistic war criminals such as Nobusuke Kishi, Hiroshi Abe’s grandfather and former Prime Minister of Japan. They were also backing yakuza to break up student protests against the signing of the Ampo treaty. The Girard incident, from “The Girard And Quackenbush Killings,” was something I had not read about before. William S. Girard, a 21-year-old enlisted soldier from Ottawa, Illinois shot Naka Sakai, a mother of six, in the back with an empty grenade casing from a rocket launcher out of boredom when locals were collecting shell casings from a firing range that he was guarding for trade as scrap in 1957. This almost caused an international incident as the general public was stunned and confused at the light sentence Girard received for manslaughter, which later it was revealed that he US government made a secret deal with the Japanese government to get a lesser offense instead of murder.
  
  Whiting cut his teeth writing about baseball in Japan, so it should come as no surprise that two of his stand out chapters are on baseball figures. The first “The Sadaharu Oh Story,’ about Japan’s Babe Ruth, who was continually overlooked by the general public due to his status as Taiwanese national born to Taiwanese parents in Japan despite having never lived there. He played second fiddle to pure-blooded Shigeo Nagashima, despite out hitting and outplaying him year after year and breaking Babe Ruth’s home run records. The other chapter, “Valentine’s Way,” tells the story of how Bobby Valentine was brought over to innovate and sue the “American way” to make the struggling Chiba Lotte Marines winners. In his first year in 1995 they finished in second place and was unceremoniously fired for his effort. Later he was brought back in 2004, in 2005 they won their first pennant and their first Championship. Then in 2009 he was fired with two years remaining on his contract after a smear campaign by the team. Valentine was immensely popular with the fan base and 112,000 fans signed a petition to keep him on as manager.
  
  Whiting also devoted another chapter to an innovative foreigner who was also run out of Japan after achieving great success, Carlos Ghosn. He was brought over to Japan revitalize Nissan which was losing millions of dollars a year when he was hired. He turned it around and made it profitable and later was also named head of Renault when it was acquired by Nissan in 2005, becoming the first person ever to do so. When the Japanese managers decided they wanted to get rid of him the Japanese government worked with them to make trumped up charges to get him removed as head of the corporation. He eventually escaped Japan by hiding in a audio equipment box.
  
  Whiting, now in his sixth decade in Japan, has written an eclectic and entertaining book about the postwar history of foreigners who helped shape modern Japan. It is something of a capstone to an influential and long distinguished writing career in Japan.
• 
  DC Palter

  Robert Whiting is always fun to read. The author of You Gotta Have Wa and Tokyo Junkie, Whiting has been writing about Japan since arriving in the country in 1962.
  
  Whiting is the preeminent English-language writer and commentator on Japanese baseball, and has also written extensively about the yakuza in Tokyo Underworld and the Japanese-language book, Tokyo Outsiders.
  
  That makes Whiting uniquely suited for Tuttle’s new release: Gamblers, Fraudsters, Dreamers & Spies — the Outsiders Who Shaped Modern Japan.
  
  The book is a grab-bag of stories covering everything from occupation-era black market profiteers to CIA operatives supporting right-wing politicians to the leaders of Nissan and Olympus who crashed into Japanese corporate culture.
  
  But it also covers zainichi Korean-Japanese battling against discrimination including the baseball slugger and manager, Sadaharu Oh, and the founding family of the largest taxi company in the country.
  
  There are more stories of baseball with the American, Bobby Valentine, who led the Chiba Lotte Marines to a championship, and plenty of foreign hostesses including an Australian named Maggie who built a successful nightclub in Roppongi and an Englishwoman named Lucie Blackman who was murdered by a client.
  
  And let’s not forget North Korean cryptocurrency thieves and the Frenchman, Mark Karpelès, whose Mt. Gox bitcoin exchange briefly made Tokyo the center of the cryptocurrency world before imploding in a massive hack and losing billions of customers’ yen.
  
  Then top it all off with the complex web of the Unification Church, which wove Korean religion, politics, and government spies, with the Japanese LDP, the American Republican party, and the deep involvement of the CIA. The story of the Unification Church comes to a head with the assassination of former prime minister Shinzo Abe by a troubled man whose mother had donated all the family’s money to the church.
  
  The book contains a series of interesting and entertaining stories running from the post-war era to the present day. It enlightens the history of the occupation and rebuilding of Japan, shines a light on the inner workings of the Roppongi nightclubs of the bubble years, and brings us into the current era where Japanese companies want to appear globalized while still maintaining the comfy, club-like corporate operations of yesteryear.
  
  Some of the stories are shocking and Whiting knows how to tell a good tale. Many are so crazy that they’re hard to believe, but Whiting knows the history better than anyone. The book is enjoyable to read and flows quickly from one anecdote to the next.
  
  What is missing is any real theme to the madness other than a collection of stories that Whiting wanted to tell. At first, it seemed to be focused on the Western gaijin who came to Japan, but the book also includes chapters on zainichi Korean-Japanese who were born in the country.
  
  Then it seemed to be about the Japanese underworld, but later chapters dove into baseball, corporate scandals, and religion. I thought the theme was about the baleful influence of outsiders, but it features stories of foreigners who saved lives, supported orphanages, and collected Japanese cultural artifacts.
  
  The title is Gamblers, Fraudsters, Dreamers & Spies, but to that should be added drug dealers, murderers, baseball players, and saints, as well as hostesses, CEOs, taxi drivers, and religious cults.
  
  Many of the stories have been covered more extensively elsewhere, including in Whiting’s own books. Personally, I was most interested in the early chapters covering the post-war period when colorful American black marketeers collaborated with the yakuza and the CIA helped build the LDP with far-right politicians and war criminals, a history I only knew in passing. Later chapters covering recent events such as the corporate scandals of Nissan and Olympus felt like a recap of information I already knew.
  
  Despite the grab-bag nature of the collection, the book is fun to read while shining a flashlight deep into the basement below modern Japanese history infested with criminals and fraudsters.